The Burial Of Count Orgaz, Detail
Of The Franciscans (1623) by El Greco.
A masterpiece of Christian art from
the Spanish school.

Definition:
Form of 2-D Visual Expression:

The art of painting consists of the arrangement
of shapes, lines, colours, tones and textures on a two-dimensional surface,
thus creating an aesthetic image. More than that one cannot say, the sheer
variety of possibilities precludes any more precise definition. The finished
painting may be wholly representational
and naturalistic - such as those of the photorealists (eg. Richard Estes)
- or wholly abstract - comprising only
geometric shapes (like those by Piet Mondrian, or Bridget Riley) - or
anywhere in between. In genre terms, it might be a narrative history work,
a portrait, a genre-scene, a landscape or a still life. It may be painted
using encaustic, tempera or fresco paint, oils, acrylics or watercolours,
or any of the new contemporary mediums. And as art
critics and historians can testify, there are countless conflicting
theories about the function, design, style-hierarchy and aesthetics of
painting, so perhaps the safest thing is to say that as "visual artists",
painters are engaged in the task of creating two-dimensional works of
visual expression, in whatever manner appeals to them.

ART OF PAINTING
During the Renaissance, the art of
painting, (colorito in Italian) was
considered secondary to the art of
drawing (disegno): for example,
fine arts classes at the Academies
were devoted to draftsmanship
and rarely dealt with the use of
colour pigment. To learn how to
paint, most students had to join
a studio/'atelier of an established
painter. Not until 1863 did oil
painting become part of the
curriculum of the French Academy
the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

Sometimes called "disegno"
- a term derived from Renaissance art
which translates as both design and drawing, thus including the artist's
idea of what he wants to create as well as its execution - painting design
concerns the formal organization of various elements into a coherent
whole.

(1) Line encompasses everything
from basic outlines and contours, to edges of tone and colour. Linework
fixes the relationship between adjacent or remote elements and areas of
the painting surface, and their relative activity or passivity.

(2) Shape and Mass includes the
various different areas of colour, tone and texture, together with any
specific images therein. Many of the most famous paintings (eg. The
Last Supperby Leonardo Da Vinci) are optically arranged around geometric shapes
(or a mixture thereof). Negative space can also be used to emphasise certain
features of the composition.

(3) Not surprisingly, given that the human
eye can identify up to 10 million differing hues, colour has many
different uses. (See colorito.)It
can be used in a purely descriptive manner - Egyptians used different
colours to distinguish Gods or Pharaohs, and to differentiate men from
women - or to convey moral messages or emotional moods, or enhance perspective
(fainter colours for distant backgrounds). See also: Titian
and Venetian Colour Painting 1500-76. Above all, colour is used to
depict the effects of light (see the series of Haystacks or Rouen
Cathedral by Claude Monet), while many great painters like Caravaggio
and Rembrandt have exploited the contrast between colours for dramatic
effect - notably in the technique of chiaroscuro
(see Rembrandt's The Night Watch). See colour
in painting.

(4) The elements of Volume and Space
are concerned with how the painter creates depth and spatial relationships
within the flat surface of the picture. Traditional painters do this by
deploying the concept of linear
perspective, as developed by Florentine Renaissance masters like Piero
della Francesca (see also the illusionistic techniques of quadratura
and foreshortening) while Cubists
like Picasso, Braque, Duchamp and Juan Gris, expressed space and volume
by showing a range of overlapping "snapshots" of the same object
as if viewed simultaneously from different viewpoints. Still others, like
naive (naif) or primitive-style painters show objects not in their true-life
naturalistic relationship to each other, but separately, from whatever
angle best shows their characteristic features - this includes the flattened
stylistic forms used, for instance, by the Egyptians.

(5) The elements of Time and Movement
concern how the viewer's eye is allowed to experience the picture, in
terms of speed and direction, both for its narrative development (eg.
in large-scale history murals), its trompe
l'oeil potential, or its angular opportunities for study (eg.
Cubist paintings depicting several "snapshots" of the same objects).

Painting
Interpretation

In addition to creating a visual object,
an artist also aims to infuse it with a degree of intellectual content,
in the form of symbolism, a moral or social message, or some other meaningful
content. Thus, the famous American critic Clement
Greenberg (1909-94) once stated that all great art should aim to create
tension between visual appeal and interpretive possibility.
The history of art is full of examples of interpretive content.

For example, Egyptian art is noted for
its iconographic imagery, as are Byzantine panel paintings and pre-Renaissance
frescos. Renaissance pictures, such as those by Old
Masters such as Botticelli, Leonardo and Raphael , often took the
form of highly complex allegorical works, a tradition that was maintained
throughout the succeeding Baroque and Neoclassical eras of the 17th and
18th centuries. Even still lifes, notably the genre of Vanitas
painting, were infused with moralistic allegory. However, the tradition
waned somewhat during the 19th century, under the dominant influences
of Romanticism, Impressionism and to a lesser extent Expressionism, before
reemerging in the 20th century, when Cubism and Surrealism exploited it
to the full.

Mediums of Painting

Encaustic

One of the main painting mediums of the
ancient world, encaustic painting
employs hot beeswax as a binding medium to hold coloured pigments and
to enable their application to a surface - usually wood panels or walls.
It was widely used in Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Byzantine art.

Fresco

Fresco (Italian for "fresh")
refers to the method of painting in which pigments are mixed solely with
water (no binding agent used) and then applied directly onto freshly laid
plaster ground, usually on a plastered wall or ceiling. The plaster absorbs
the liquid paint and as it dries, retaining the pigments in the wall.
Extra effects were obtained by scratching techniques like sgraffito.
The greatest examples of fresco painting
are probably Michelangelo's "Genesis" and "Last Judgment"
Sistine Chapel frescoes,
and the paintings in the Raphael Rooms, such as "The School of Athens".

Tempera

Instead of beeswax, the painting medium
tempera employs an emulsion of water and egg yolk (occasionally mixed
with glue, honey or milk) to bind the pigments. Tempera
painting was eventually superceded by oils, although as a method for
painting on panels it endured for centuries.

Oils

The dominant medium since 1500, oil
painting uses oils like linseed, walnut, or poppyseed, as both a binder
and drying agent. Its popularity stems from the increased richness and
glow that oil gives to the colour
pigments. It also facilitated subtle details, using techniques like
sfumato, as well as bold paintwork
obtained through thick layering (impasto).
Important pioneers of oil paint techniques included (in Holland) the Flemish
painters Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, and (in Italy) Antonello da Messina,
Leonardo Da Vinci, and especially members of the school of Venetian
painting, including Giovanni Bellini and Titian.

Watercolours and Gouache

Watercolour
painting - a rather unforgiving medium - developed in England - uses
water soluble pigments pre-formulated with a binder, typically gum arabic.
When watercolours are thickened, made opaque and mixed with white, it
is called gouache. Early pioneers of
watercolour painting include Thomas Girtin and JMW Turner. Gouache was
an important medium for many of the best miniaturists involved in early
miniature portrait painting,
before the use of enamel.

Acrylics

The most modern of all mediums, acrylic
painting is a man-made paint containing a resin derived from acrylic
acid that combines some of the properties of watercolour and oils. Highly
versatile, it can be applied to almost any surface in varying amounts,
ranging from thin washes to thick impastoed layers. It can give either
a matt or gloss finish and is extremely fast-drying. Popular with many
famous painters, including David Hockney,
acrylic painting may yet supercede oils during the 21st century.

Forms of Painting

Murals

Dating back to Paleolithic cave
painting, murals were painted in tombs, temples, sanctuaries and catacombs
throughout the ancient Western world, including Etruria, Egypt, Crete,
and Greece. Initially devoid of "depth", they were fully developed
as a medium for Biblical art during early
Renaissance, by fresco artists like Giotto (see: Scrovegni
Chapel frescoes), and later by Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Raphael and
Michelangelo. As interior decoration became increasingly dominated by
stained glass and tapestry art, mural painting
declined, although a number of site-specific works were commissioned during
the 19th and 20th centuries.

Panel Painting

The earliest form of portable painting,
panels were widely used (eg) in Egyptian and Greek art (although only
a few have survived), and later by Byzantine artists from 400 CE onwards.
As with murals, panel-paintings
were rejuvenated during the late Gothic and early Renaissance period,
chiefly as a type of decorative devotional art - eg. "The Ghent
Altarpiece" (1432) by Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, and "The
Deposition" (1440) by Roger van der Weyden. For details of Renaissance
panel painting in 16th century Venice, a genre and period which illustrates
the colorito approach of the city, please see: Venetian
Altarpieces (1500-1600) and Venetian
Portrait Painting (1400-1600). See also: Legacy
of Venetian Painting on European art.

Wooden panel painting was especially popular
in Flemish painting
and other Northern schools, due to the climate which was not favourable
for fresco murals, and remained so up until the end of the 17th century.

Easel Painting

This form, like panel painting, was a form
of studio art but used canvas as a support rather than wood panels. Canvas
was both lighter and less expensive than panels, and required no special
priming with gesso and other materials. From the Baroque era onwards (1600)
oil on canvas became the preferred form of painting throughout Europe.
It was particularly popular with the new bourgeois patrons of art (eg.
portraiture) for home display.

Manuscript Illumination

Dating back to celebrated examples from
ancient Egypt, like the "Book of the Dead", this type of painting
achieved its apogee during the Middle Ages (c.500-1000 CE) in the form
of Irish and European illuminated
manuscripts. Early examples of this type of book painting include:
Cathach of St. Columba (early 7th century c.610-620), Book of
Durrow (c.670), Lindisfarne Gospels (c.698-700), Echternach
Gospels (c.700), Lichfield Gospels (730), Godescalc Evangelistary
(781-83), The Golden Psalter (783-89), Lorsch Gospels (778-820),
Book of Kells (c.800), Gospel of St Medard of Soissons (810),
Utrecht Psalter (830), Ebo Gospels (835), Grandval Bible
(840), Vivian Bible (845).

Typically executed in egg-white tempera
on vellum and card, these painted manuscripts featured extremely rich
and complex graphic designs of Celtic-style interlace, knotwork, spirals
and zoomorphs, as well as figurative portraits of Saints and Apostles.
Sadly, the advent of the printing press in 15th century Germany put this
art form out of business in Europe. Thereafter it survived only in the
East, notably in the form of Islamic calligraphic painting and decorated
texts, and miniatures from India.

Scroll Painting

Hand scrolls are an East Asian art form
dating from c.350 CE, common to both Chinese
painting and Japanese art. Composed of varying lengths of paper or
silk, they featured a wide variety of ink
and wash paintings whose subjects included landscapes, Buddhist themes,
historical or mythological scenes, among others. For a guide to the aesthetic
principles behind Oriental arts and crafts, see: Traditional
Chinese Art: Characteristics.

Screen/Fan Painting

There are two basic types of painted screen:
traditional Chinese and Japanese folding screens, painted in ink or gouache
on paper or silk, dating from the 12th century - a form which later included
lacquer screens; and the iconostasis screen, found in Byzantine, Greek
and Russian Orthodox churches, which separates the sanctuary from the
nave. This screen is traditionally decorated with religious icons
and other imagery, using either encaustic or tempera paints. Painted fans
- typically decorated with ink and coloured pigments on paper, card or
silk, sometimes laid with gold or silver leaf - originated in China and
Japan, although curiously many were actually painted in India. In Europe,
fan painting was not practised until the 17th century, and only properly
developed in France and Italy from about 1750 onwards.

Modern Forms of Painting

20th Century painters have experimented
with a huge range of supports and materials, including steel, concrete,
polyester, neon lights, as well as an endless variety of "found"
objects (objets trouves). The latter is exemplified in the works of Yves
Klein (1928-62), who decorated women's nude bodies with blue paint and
then imprinted them on canvas; and Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008)
whose work Bed (1955) consisted of the quilt from his own bed,
painted with toothpaste, lipstick and fingernail polish.

Painting Genres

There are five traditional painting
genres. These are ranked as follows:
(1) history painting, (2) portraiture,
(3) genre-painting, (4) landscape
and
(5) still life. This ranking
system corresponds to the "Hierarchy
of the Genres" annunciated by the European academies of fine
arts, which valued pictures according to their moral message or content.
Thus still lifes, being devoid of any human presence, supposedly contained
the least moral narrative. By comparison, history paintings - depicting
scenes of emotional struggle - had the greatest narrative content, and
were therefore considered to be the pre-eminent form of picture-making.

History and Styles
of Painting

Origins

The history
of art has witnessed a wide range of painting styles. Beginning with
pre-historic cave painting (eg. in the Altamira, Chauvet and Lascaux caves),
it encompasses the murals and panel paintings of Egyptian, Minoan, Mycenean
and Etruscan civilizations, as well as the classical antique style of
Greek painting and Roman art. An excellent example from Classical Antiquity
is the series of Fayum Mummy
Portraits, found mostly in the Faiyum Basin near Cairo.

The collapse of Rome (c.450 CE) led to
the ascendancy of Byzantine art, based in Constantinople. Meanwhile Western
Europe suffered four centuries of stagnation - The Dark Ages - before
Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne the Holy Roman Emperor. Charlemagne's
court sponsored a mini-cultural renaissance known as Carolingian art (750-900).
This revival was maintained by Otto I, II, and III, the era of Ottonian
art, before a revitalized Roman Church launched the successive cultural
styles of Romanesque (1000-1200) and Gothic art (1150-1375). The main
painting activities undertaken as part of these five movements, were icon
panel paintings, religious fresco murals, and book illuminations.

Proto-Renaissance

Medieval Western painting was heavily regulated
by convention. Not only was subject matter limited almost exclusively
to the depiction of Biblical figures, but also there was a fixed canon
of rules which laid down which Old and New Testament figures might be
included, and how they should be recognized. The structure of the picture
adhered to the "perspective of meaning", whereby important subjects
were shown large, and less important ones on a smaller scale. Painters
were also obliged to follow a formulaic set of conventions in their compositions,
concerning (eg) colour, space and background. Thus naturalism was not
generally permitted. The divine world of God, Jesus, The Virgin Mary,
the Prophets, Saints and Apostles - which was the predominant theme -
was viewed as a transcendental world, whose magnificence and glory were
generally symbolized by a glowing gold ground.

The first artists to challenge the rigidity
of these painting rules were Cimabue and his pupil Giotto (1270-1337)
whose fresco cycle in the Capella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel) in Padua introduced
a new realism, using a far more naturalistic idiom. As a result Giorgio
Vasari (1511-74) describes Giotto in his "Lives of the Painters"
("Vite de' piu eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori Italiani")
(1550) as "the father of painting." Another innovator of the
proto-Renaissance trecento
period (c.1300-1400) was Ambrogio Lorenzetti (active 1319-48), of the
Sienese School
of painting.

Early Renaissance

While the old-fashioned styles of Byzantine
art, and International
Gothic were gradually playing themselves out in Siena (Italy) and
in feudal royal courts across Europe, Giotto's creative ideas were being
examined and developed in Florence during the Early
Renaissance (1400-90). This movement saw four major developments:
(1) a revival of Classical Greek/Roman art forms and styles; (2) Greater
belief in the nobility of Man (Humanism); (3) Mastery of linear perspective
(depth in a painting); and (4) Greater realism in figurative painting.
Supreme painters of the Early Renaissance included: Tommaso Masaccio (c.1401-28)
who painted a series of fresco paintings in the chapel of the Brancacci
family, in Florence; and Piero della Francesca (1420-92) whose passionate
interest in mathematics led him to pioneer linear perspective, with geometrically
exact spaces and strictly proportioned spaces (see his The Flagellation
of Christ, 1450s). Realism, linear perspective and new forms of
composition were all further refined by quattrocento artists that
followed, such as the Florentines Antonio del Pollaiuolo (1432-98) and
Alessandro Botticelli (1445-1510), and the Northern Italian Andrea Mantegna
(1431-1506).

High/Late Renaissance

High
Renaissance painting (c.1490-1530), centred on Rome and driven by
Pope Julius II (reigned 1503-13) and Pope Leo X (reigned 1513-21), witnessed
the zenith of Italian Renaissance ideology and aesthetic idealism, as
well as some of the greatest
Renaissance paintings. All this is well exemplified in the work of
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) (The Last Supper, Mona
Lisa), Raphael (1483-1520) (The School of Athens) and Michelangelo
(1475-1564) (the Genesis
fresco in the Vatican Sistine Chapel). This High
Renaissance trio were supported by other great painters from Venice,
including Jacopo (c.1400-1470), Gentile Bellini (c.1429-1507) and Giovanni
Bellini (c.1430-1516), Giorgione (c.1476-1510), Titian (Tiziano Vecellio)
(c.1487-1576), Paolo Veronese (1528-88) and Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti)
(1518-94).

Northern Renaissance

Meanwhile, in Northern Europe (Flanders,
Holland, England and Germany), the Northern Renaissance evolved in a slightly
different way, not least in its preference for oil painting (fresco being
less suited to the damper climate), and its espousal of printmaking. Great
artists of the era were: Jan Van Eyck (1390-1441), Roger van der Weyden
(1400-1464), Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516), Albrecht Durer (1471-1528),
and Hans Holbein (1497-1543).

Mannerism

Art in the turbulent cinquecento
or 16th century, was characterized by a less harmonized, more forced style
of painting, called Mannerism.
Michelangelo's second Sistine fresco, The Last
Judgment fresco is an exemplar, as is The Burial Of Count Orgaz
by El Greco (c.1541-1614).

Baroque

During the late 16th century, in response
to Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation movement (c.1520 onwards), the
Roman Catholic Church launched its Counter-Reformation, using every means
at its disposal to revive its reputation, including art. This coincided
with the emergence of a new European style of painting known as Baroque
painting, which flourished during the 17th century. In some ways,
Baroque art was the apogee of
Mannerism, being characterized by large scale extravagant theatricality
in both form and subject matter. Rubens (1577-1640) was the Catholic Counter-Reformation
Baroque painter par excellence. In Spain, another bastion of Catholicism,
the leading painters were Diego Velazquez (1599-1660) and Francisco Zurbaran
(1598-1664). In Italy, Caravaggio (1571-1610) became the leading Counter
Reformation painter, famous for his naturalism and down-to-earth imagery.
He was an important pioneer of Tenebrism
and chiaroscuro, the painterly use of shadow popularized under
the name of Caravaggism.
A key centre of both Italian Baroque art and Caravaggesque painting was
Naples - at the time the second biggest city in Europe, after Paris. For
more information, please see: Painting
in Naples (1600-1700).

Dutch Realist School

Non-Catholic Dutch
Baroque art, and some Flemish
Baroque art, was obliged to develop differently, since Protestant
church authorities had little interest in commissioning religious works.
However, growing prosperity among the merchant and professional classes
led to the emergence of a new type of art-collector, whose pride in house
and home triggered a new demand for easel art: in particular, genre-works,
landscapes and still lifes. Thus arose the great Dutch
Realist schools of genre painting in Delft, Utrecht, Haarlem and Leiden,
among whose members we find geniuses like Rembrandt (1606-1669) and Jan
Vermeer (1632-1675).

Rococo

By about 1700, the weighty Baroque idiom
developed into a lighter, less serious style, which eventually took independent
form in a movement known as Rococo.
Exclusively French to begin with, this whimsical decorative style eventually
spread throughout Europe during the 18th century. Its greatest exponents
were the French painters Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), Jean-Honore
Fragonard (1732-1806), Francois Boucher (1703-70) and the Venetian Giambattista
Tiepolo (1696-1770): the latter renowned for his fantastic wall and ceiling
fresco paintings. Rococo became closely associated with the decadent ancien
regimes of Europe, notably that of the French King Louis XV and his
mistress Madame de Pompadour.

Neoclassicism and Romanticism (Flourished
c.1789-1830)

The French Revolution of 1789 coincided
with the emergence of two differing artistic styles: Neoclassical
art and Romanticism.
Exponents of neoclassical
painting looked to Classical Antiquity for inspiration; their pictures
being characterized by heroicism, onerous duty and a tangible sense of
gravitas. Its leading exponent was the French political artist Jacques-Louis
David (1748-1825). Other renowned Neoclassical artists included the German
portraitist and historical painter Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-79), and
the French master of the Academic art style, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
(1780-1867). The movement's greatest contribution, however, was its architecture,
which is still visible throughout the world.

In contrast to the gravitas and
universal values promoted by Neo-Classicism, Romantic painters sought
to return to nature - exemplified by their espousal of spontaneous plein-air
painting (eg. at the Barbizon,
Pont-Aven, and Norwich
schools of painting), and placed their trust in the senses and emotions
rather than reason and intellect. Romantic artists tended to express an
emotional personal response to life. Celebrated Romantics included John
Constable (1776-1837), and JMW Turner (1775-1851) - important representatives
of 19th century English
Landscape Painting - Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) and Camille
Corot (1796-1875); as well as the history painters and portraitists Francisco
Goya (1746-1828) Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), James Barry (1741-1806), Theodore
Gericault (1791-1824) and Eugene Delacroix (1798-63). See also English
Figurative Painting (1700-1900).

Up until the 19th century, with the exception
of 17th century Netherlandish art, painting focused primarily on "important"
subjects, as defined by tradition the fine arts academies and the Paris
Salon. Even when painters turned to less exalted subjects (eg.
child beggars), typically they would depict them in an idealized manner.
But in keeping with the new ideas of "Liberty, Fraternity and Equality",
unleashed by the French Revolution, artists began to give equal priority
to everyday subjects, which were depicted in true-life, naturalistic fashion.
This new style, which emerged mainly in France and attracted painters
from all the genres - notably Gustave Courbet (1819-77), Jean-Francois
Millet (1814-75), Honore Daumier (1808-79), Ilya Repin (1844-1930) and
Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) - became known as Realism.
Its influence continued throughout the 20th century, during which time
it spawned numerous sub-movements such as Ashcan
School (New York), Social
Realism (assisted by Federal Arts Project) Precisionism
(industrial scenes), Socialist Realism, Contemporary Realism, and others,
and continues to this day.

Notable 20th century realists include
the American painter Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) and the English portraitist
Lucian Freud (b.1922). The latest contemporary style of realism is Photorealism,
also known as hyperrealism and superrealism.

Impressionist Painting

By the latter half of the 19th century,
Paris had become the undisputed centre of world art. It consolidated its
position by giving birth to one of the greatest modern art movements of
all time - Impressionism,
whose principal adherents included: Claude Monet (1840-1926), Camille
Pissarro (1830-1903), Alfred Sisley (1839-1899), Pierre-Auguste Renoir
(1841-1919), Edgar Degas (1834-1917), Edouard Manet (1832-83), Paul Cezanne
(1839-1906), and Berthe Morisot (1841-95). Other painters associated with
the Impressionist style, included Georges Seurat (1859-1891), Paul Gauguin
(1848-1903), John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), James McNeil Whistler (1834-1903)
and Walter Sickert (1860-1942). See also: Best
Impressionist Paintings.

(2) Cubism
- a more intellectual style which featured Analytical then Synthetic Cubist
painting, pioneered by Georges Braque (1882-1963) and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973).
Cubist experimentation with the two-dimensional picture plane led to offshoot
styles such as Futurism, the
Italian artistic movement founded in 1909 by Filippo Marinetti (1876-1944);
the Orphic Cubism (Simultanism) of Robert Delaunay (1885-1941); Rayonnism
developed by the Russian
artists Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964) and Natalia Goncharova (1881-1962);
the Russian Abstract art movement of 1913-15, known as Suprematism, led
by Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935), and the Dutch De
Stijl movement founded in 1917 by Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931) and
Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), which later became Neo-Plasticism. For more,
see: Abstract Paintings.

Early 20th century painting was also influenced
by the decorative designs of both Art Nouveau (Jugendstil
in Germany) and Art Deco.

European avant-garde painting was showcased
for the first time in America at the Armory
Show (1913) in New York.

Post-World War I Painting: Surrealism

After the anti-art antics of Dada, the
first international painting movement of the interwar years was Surrealism,
whose irreverent, populist style became a major influence on later Pop-Art.
After the pioneering metaphysical
painting of Giorgio de Chirico, a major precursor for Surreal art,
leading Surrealist artists included Max Ernst (1891-1976), Man Ray (18901976),
Jean Arp (1887-1966), Joan Miro (1893-1983), Rene Magritte (1898-1967)
and Salvador Dali (1904-89).

Post-World War II: Abstract Expressionism
(c.1945-65)

By 1940, with Europe in chaos, the art
centre of the world had shifted to New York, where a growing number of
indigenous painters mingled with emigrant artists from France, Spain and
Germany, finding patronage and support from the Guggenheim family, among
others. The atmosphere was heavy with war, from which many artists recoiled,
seeking comfort and meaning in abstraction rather than figurative art,
which had effectively gone into decline following the demise of American
Scene Painting and its mid-west variant Regionalism.

As the abstract style became ever more
intellectual, other American painters sought alternatives rooted in -
if not figuration then at least everyday reality. In the late 1950s, Jasper
Johns (b.1930) and Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) began to explore the
use of popular culture as a source of inspiration. This quickly led to
the anti-intellectual Pop-Art
movement, exemplified in works by Roy Lichtenstein (1923-97), Andy Warhol
(1928-87) and David Hockney (b.1937), among many others. After declining
during the early 1970s, it reappeared as Neo-Pop during the 1980s.

Contemporary
Painting

RepresentationalContemporary art since 1970 has witnessed
some great figurative painting, including works by Francis Bacon (1909-92),
and Fernando Botero (b.1932). More recently, we have the arresting neo-expressionism
of Chinese painters like Zhang Xiaogang (b.1958) and Yue Minjun (b.1962),
landscapes by Peter Doig (b.1959) and the Ukrainian artist Dmitry Kolujny,
the extraordinary "egg" pictures of Alexander Vlasenko, as well
as numerous portraits by a range of young painters, including the Irishmen
David Nolan (b.1966) and Conor Walton (b.1970), among many others. Even
so, figure painting has yet to find
its proper niche in contemporary art.

Abstract
The same applies to non-representational painting which continues to attract
a host of young abstract
painters, and spawn numerous mini-movements, without producing the
concomitant results one might expect.

It's quite conceivable that all this is
more apparent than real. For example, the lack of "international"
movements might be creating an illusion that little progress is being
made, despite significant local developments. This does not square, however,
with the lack of "big-name contemporary painters" - an unexpected
phenomenon given the greater media coverage now available.

So overall, to put it crudely, picture-making
since the 1970s - despite much individual brilliance - does not seem to
have produced its fair share of masterpieces. Instead,
one might argue that postmodernist painters have had their hands full
trying to find answers to these three questions: (1) How meaningful is
figurative painting in an age dominated by photographic journalism and
video film? (2) What more can abstract painting offer in the way of aesthetic
originality? (3) To what extent can painting compete with more "modern"
art forms like installation, for the attention of ordinary people, in
art museums or other public venues?

Perhaps traditional drawing and painting
skills, which no longer receive the attention previously accorded them
by art colleges and academies, are in decline, although not, it seems
- at least to the same extent - in Russia, Eastern Europe and China, where
perhaps modern video/photographic technology has less impact. On the other
hand, new paint technology, as well as software graphics, has opened up
painting to a wider range of practitioners, which can only be a positive
development.